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CULTURED TRAVELER; Los Angeles? The Valley Is Way Cooler

By DAVID McANINCH

Published: July 22, 2012

CORRECTION APPENDED

TEN years ago, I married a Valley Girl. She is neither a salon-tanned airhead nor a mall-rat. I have never heard her utter the phrase ''No way!''

Yes, I'll admit I'm a little defensive when it comes to the San Fernando Valley. Unlike most visitors to Southern California, my introduction to Greater Los Angeles started in the vast and forever maligned Valley -- that assemblage of suburban communities falling mostly within the Los Angeles city limits -- where Michele grew up. I've spent plenty of time on the other side of the Santa Monica Mountains, in the more glamorous precincts of central Los Angeles, but during a decade's worth of visits with my wife to both sides of the ''hill'' -- as those mountains, and the perceived cultural divide they represent, are affectionately known -- I've come to an interesting conclusion: I tend to prefer the Valley. Sure, it's got strip malls and strip clubs in equal abundance, and it lacks the chic cachet that so many people associate with Los Angeles. But that lack of hipness is exactly its charm.

If coastal Los Angeles is where people strive and achieve, the Valley is where they put down roots and live. And so, as I've happily discovered while covering hundreds of miles of Valley pavement over the years, the place is home to dozens of un-self-consciously excellent neighborhood restaurants, old-school cocktail lounges, uncompromisingly authentic ethnic markets and a gamut of overlooked treasures, from hiking trails to architectural landmarks. Here is a selection of my favorites.

Sushi Shangri-la

Angelenos from the coast side of the hill boast, justifiably, about their Japanese restaurants. But for a Valley dweller, having a good sushi joint around the corner is considered nothing short of a birthright. A couple of the most memorable raw-fish experiences of my life have taken place at the eight-seat counter of Go's Mart, a shoe box sushi bar in a Canoga Park mini-mall. The d?r consists of little more than a rice cooker and a dry-erase board with the day's catch on it, but the creations of the chef, a taciturn character who goes only by the nickname Go-San, are masterworks: strips of garnet-colored Pacific bluefin tuna garnished with gossamer-thin rounds of crisp-fried garlic; toro with balsamic glaze and black caviar; toothsome abalone from the Santa Barbara coast topped by shavings of black truffle and a shower of gold leaf. Head to Go's early; within 10 minutes of the noon opening, it's filled to capacity with sushi-obsessed West Valley regulars.

Brisket, Booze and Burgers

Not far from Go's Mart, in yet another strip mall, stands Brent's, a 35-year-old restaurant with a cheesy faux stained-glass facade. David Sax, the author of ''Save the Deli,'' has called Brent's ''the surprise heavyweight'' of Jewish delicatessens in Los Angeles, and he's right. The hungry screenwriters can have the glare of Canter's, and Larry King his banquette at Nate n' Al, but you've got to go to the Valley for corned beef and whitefish salad this good, and for made-from-scratch kishke, an old-world delicacy that the owner Ron Peskin all but rescued from West Coast extinction. All that cured meat will make you thirsty, so head next door to the Stovepiper, a timeworn cocktail lounge with the cool, dark interior of an off-Strip casino and a sign out front advertising ''the best drinks in the Valley'' (a claim I was unable to verify, though not for lack of trying).

Then there is the matter of the hamburger, that most sacred of Southern California foods. All due respect to the Apple Pan -- the venerable burger-slinging lunch counter in West Los Angeles -- those seeking a quintessential SoCal burger experience would do well to head to the Valley enclave of Chatsworth and install themselves on one of the outdoor counter stools at the Munch Box. This yellow, hutch-like building, dating from the 1950s, produces a near-perfect, classically Los Angeles burger: small patty, soft bun warmed on the griddle, hickory-flavored sauce, butcher-paper wrapping.

Cultural Diversity

The Valley is not the cultural desert that many Angelenos make it out to be. In 2011 it got its own soaring, glass-walled 1,700-seat performing arts center, in Northridge, which has recently hosted shows by the Los Angeles Ballet, the San Francisco Jazz Collective, and Savion Glover, among other notable acts. Wooing bigger marquee artists away from the downtown Walt Disney Concert Hall will take time, but every David needs a Goliath.

For a quieter, more modest cultural fix, try the museum and chapel at the San Fernando Rey de Espa?ission, one of the most impeccably preserved sites from California's Spanish colonial era. Though it occupies a wedge of land in Mission Hills hemmed in on all sides by freeways, it offers a profoundly serene experience. Stroll through the arcaded walkways and statuary-dotted courtyards and explore the painstakingly restored adobe buildings, which include a still-active mission church with a gilded altarpiece from the 17th century. On the day I was there, I was the only visitor, a circumstance that afforded me an unexpectedly moving moment of solitude before the grave of longtime Valley-dweller Bob Hope, who is interred in his own little memorial garden at the mission's edge.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An article on July 22 about the San Fernando Valley, near Los Angeles, misidentified the architect of the Adams House. It was designed by Lloyd Wright, not by his father, Frank Lloyd Wright. The article also misstated part of the name of a park. It is Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (not ''Los'' Virgenes).

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